Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City (39 page)

THE MOSQUE COURTYARD

It is time to take a look at what remains of this fascinating külliye. Approaching from the west, one finds that part of the west wall of the precinct has been demolished, together with the small library and mektep that once stood just outside it; trees and wooden houses have intruded, but they make a picturesque enclave in this corner. Opposite is the courtyard of the mosque itself; this, with its monumental portal, is original. In the lunettes of the six western windows are some of the most remarkable inscriptions in the city: the first Surah of the Kuran is written in white marble letters on a ground of verd antique. The effect is extremely lovely and one wonders why this fascinating technique of calligraphy should occur – so far as we know – only here. The calligrapher was Yahya Sofi, and it was his son Ali who wrote the inscriptions over the main portal of the mosque and also over the Bab-
ı
Hümayün at the Saray. The dignified but simple portal has rather curious engaged columns at the corners. The convex flutes or ribs of their shafts become interlaced at top and bottom to form an intertwined serpentine pattern, while the columns end in a sort of hour-glass shaped capital and base. We shall see this same treatment again in this külliye, but not elsewhere.

In the centre of this picturesque courtyard stands the
ş
ad
ı
rvan with a witch’s cap conical roof resting on eight marble columns and surrounded by tall cypress trees. In essentials it is original even to the cypresses which are constantly mentioned by travellers, though doubtless replanted from time to time. The antique marble columns of the portico have stalactite capitals of fine, bold workmanship. At either end of the mosque porch are two more exquisite lunette inscriptions, this time in faience, showing a vivid yellow combined with blue, green and white in the
cuerda seca
technique typical of this early period. Similar panels are to be seen in the mosque of Selim I, the türbe of the
Ş
ehzade Mehmet, and a few other early buildings. The west façade of the mosque itself belongs for the most part to the baroque reconstruction, except for the entrance portal. On the exterior it has the same engaged columns as the gate to the courtyard, and is surmounted by a stalactite canopy enclosed in a series of projecting frames which give depth and emphasis. On the sides and over the door are written in bold calligraphy the historical inscriptions. But the interior side of the portal is even more remarkable; its canopy is a finely carved scallop shell supported on a double cornice of stalactites. However, it is sadly masked by a later baroque balcony built in front of it.

THE MOSQUE

The interior need not detain us long. It is a copy of the type in which the central dome is flanked by four semidomes on the axes, invented by Sinan for the
Ş
ehzade and used again for Sultan Ahmet and Yeni Cami. Here the exterior lines are still reasonably classical and pleasing, but the interior is at once weak and heavy. The painted decoration is fussy in detail and dull in colour; the lower part of the wall is sheathed in common white tiles of such inferior make that they have become discoloured with damp! In the right-hand corner is a curious fountain of drinking water (rare inside a mosque) with an old-fashioned bronze pump and silver drinking mugs; the water is cool and delicious. The mihrab, which is from the original building, resembles in style the entrance portal, though one suspects that the gilt-framed panels in the lower part are a baroque addition. Certainly baroque but equally handsome is the mimber, an elaborate structure of polychrome marble. Tea is sometimes served to the happy few who venture into the imperial loge, the antechambers of which are being used as a school for imams. The window shutters in these rooms are fine examples of baroque intarsia work, while the small dome over the loge itself is gaily painted with
trompe l’oeuil
windows.

THE TÜRBES

More interesting than the mosque itself are the magnificent dependencies. In the graveyard behind the mosque are the türbes of Sultan Mehmet and his wife Gülbahar, the mother of Beyazit II. Both of these türbes were completely reconstructed after the earthquake, though on the old foundations. That of Fatih is very baroque and its interior extremely sumptuous in the
Empire
style. During the days of the Ottoman Empire it was the custom for new sultans to visit this türbe immediately after they were girded with the sword of Osman at Eyüp. It was thought that this pilgrimage would endow them with some of the Conqueror’s courage and vigour, but it is surely not Fatih’s fault that this visit seldom made lions of the new sultans. During the years when the Ottoman armies were victorious in battle, it was customary to deck the walls of Fatih’s türbe with captured weapons after a successful campaign. Across the centuries the türbe has been a popular shrine among the common people of the city, and something like a cult of emperor-worship grew up around the memory of the Conqueror and several other great sultans. But then in 1924, after the abolition of the Sultanate, all of the imperial türbes were ordered closed; only in recent years have a very few of them been reopened to the public because of their historical or artistic importance.

The türbe of Gülbahar is simple and classical and must resemble the original quite closely. An old and persistent legend, quite definitely apocryphal, has it that Gülbahar was a daughter of the King of France, sent by him as a bride for the Emperor Constantine Dragases and captured by the Turks when they were besieging the city. The legend goes on to say that Gülbahar, although she was the wife of Fatih and the mother of Beyazit, never embraced Islam and died a Christian. Evliya Çelebi recounts a version of this legend and has this to say of Gülbahar’s türbe: “I myself have often observed, at morning prayer, that the readers appointed to chant lessons from the Kuran all turned their backs upon the coffin of this lady, of whom it was so doubtful whether she departed in the faith of Islam. I have often seen Franks come by stealth and give a few aspers to the tomb-keeper to open her türbe for them, as its gate is always kept locked.” This story is also repeated by the Italian traveller Cornelio Magni, writing at about the same time as Evliya, who was led by the tomb-keeper to believe that Gülbahar was a Christian princess who lived and died in her faith. “The türbe,” he says, “remains always shut, even the windows. I asked the reason for this and was told: ‘The sepulcher of her whose soul lives among the shades deserves not a ray of light!’” After much entreaty and the intervention of an Emir who passed by, the tomb-keeper let him in: “I entered with veneration and awe... and silently recited a
De profundis
for the soul of this unfortunate Princess.”

The little library in the south corner of the graveyard beside the mosque was built by Mahmut I and dates from 1742.

THE MEDRESES

To north and south of the precinct are the eight great medreses; they are severely symmetrical and almost identical in plan. Each contains 19 cells for students and a dershane. The entrance to the dershane is from the side, and beside each entrance is a tiny garden planted with trees – an effect as rare as it is pretty. Beyond each medrese there was originally an annexe about half as large: these have quite disappeared, but seem to have consisted of porticoes around three sides of a terrace. All in all there must have been about 255 hücres, or students’ rooms, each occupied by perhaps four students. Thus the establishment must have provided for about 1,000 students – a university on a big scale. These fine buildings have recently been restored and are now again used as residences by students.

THE HOSPICE

The south-east gate of the precinct, called Çorba Kap
ı
s
ı
, or the Soup Gate, from the proximity of the imaret, is a bit of the original structure. Notice the elaborate and most unusual designs in porphyry and verd antique set into the stonework of the canopy, as well as the “panache” at the top in verd antique. Through this gate one comes to what is perhaps the finest building of the külliye, the well restored tabhane, or hospice, for travelling dervishes. It has a very beautiful courtyard and is in general an astonishing, indeed unique, building. The 20 domes of the courtyard are supported on 16 exceptionally beautiful antique columns of verd antique and Syenitic marble, doubtless from the Church of the Holy Apostles. At the east end a large square room (which has unfortunately lost its dome) originally served as a mescit-zaviye, or room, for the dervish ceremonies. On each side of this are two spacious domed rooms opening onto two open eyvans
.
These are very interesting: each has two domes supported on a rectangular pillar that one would swear at first sight to be baroque. Closer examination, however, shows the same engaged ribbed columns ending in intertwined designs and an hour-glass capital and base that we found on the entrance portals of the mosque itself. The rosettes, too, and even the very eighteenth-century mouldings, can be paralleled in this and other buildings of Fatih’s time. It is thought that the two open eyvans were used for meetings and prayers in summer, the two rooms adjoining the mescit-zaviye for the same purpose in winter, and the two farther rooms in the corner as depositories for the guests’ baggage. The two rooms at the west end of the north and south sides do not communicate with the rest of the building in any way but have their own entrances from the west forecourt; they were used as kitchens and bakehouses and doubtless depended on the adjacent imaret. This leaves only ten, or possibly 12, rooms for guests; for in the middle of the south side a passage leads through a small arched entry to the area where the kervansaray and imaret stood; an adjacent staircase leads to a room with a cradle-dome above. Opposite on the north side a similar area was occupied by lavatories; but here the dome and outer wall have fallen, and a very botched repair make it difficult to see what was the original arrangement. It is altogether an extraordinary building.

THE KERVANSARAY

The great vacant lot to the south, now used as a playing field by the children of the (modern) Fatih school, was the site of the kervansaray, to the east, and the imaret, to the west. Two fragments of the latter – small domed rooms, but ruinous now – remain in the south-west corner. Evliya says it had 70 domes; this would imply that it was a third again as big as the tabhane, which has (or had) 46 domes, and one can believe it. For, when one considers that it had to supply two meals a day to 1,000 students of the medreses, to the vast corps of clergy and professors of the foundation, to the patients and staff of the hospital, to the guests of the tabhane and kervansaray, as well as to the poor of the district, it is clear that the imaret must have been enormous. The kervansaray has wholly disappeared, but it too must have been very big even if one discounts Evliya’s statement that its stables could hold 3,000 horses and mules. This whole area to the south should be excavated; it is clear that the ground has risen considerably, presumably with the rubble of the fallen buildings, and it should be possible to determine at least the extent and plan of the imaret and kervansaray. Another building of the külliye which has disappeared is the dar-ü
ş
ş
ifa, or hospital. This was placed symmetrically with the tabhane on the north side of the graveyard; a street-name still recalls its site and bits of its wall may be seen built into modern houses.

Opposite Fatih’s tabhane is the türbe complex built in 1817–18 for Nak
ş
idil Valide Sultan, wife of Abdül Hamit I and mother of Mahmut II. The legend goes that this lady was Aimèe Dubuc de Rivery, cousin of the Empress Josephine, captured by Algerian pirates and presented to the Sultan by the Bey of Algiers. This legend also holds that it was her influence on her son and others in the Saray which brought about the pro-French policy of the Sublime Porte in the early years of the nineteenth century, and even that she was one of the instigators of the reform movement. A romantic tale has been made of this story by Leslie Blanch in her
Wilder Shores of Love;
unfortunately, there seems to be little or no foundation for the legend. However this may be, Nak
ş
idil’s türbe is a very charming one in its baroque-
Empire
way, forming a pleasant contrast to the austerity of the classic structures of the Fatih külliye. At the corner stands the enormous türbe, which has 14 sides; of its two rows of windows the upper ones are oval, a unique and pretty feature. The 14 faces are divided from each other by slender (too slender) columns which bear, on top of their capitals at the first cornice level, tall flame-like acanthus leaves carved almost in the round, giving a fine bravura effect – altogether a very original and entertaining building. The wall stretching along the street opposite the tabhane contains a gate and a grand sebil in the same flamboyant style as the türbe. The gate leads into an attractive courtyard from which one enters the türbe, whose interior decoration is rather elegant and restrained. Diagonally opposite at the far end of the court is another türbe, round and severely plain. In this türbe are interred Gülüstü Valide Sultan, mother of Mehmet VI Vahidettin, the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, together with other members of the family of Abdül Mecit. Outside, the wall along the street running north ends in a building at the next corner which was once a sibyan mektebi and is now used as a sewing school. Both wall and mektep building, constructed of brick and stone, seem to belong to an older tradition than the türbe of Nak
ş
idil, but the recurrence here and there of the flame-like acanthus motif shows that they are part of the same complex.